1814 Weak

Alex teleported out with Zhou Linfan, arriving at a safe location. Both Alex and the old man panted as if they had just survived death in mere moments.

"Are you okay?" Alex quickly asked the old man, pulling out a few healing pills to feed him.

Zhou Linfan caught Alex's hand and shook his head. "I'm fine. I am not wounded," he answered and took a large gulp again as he realized how close he had come to dying just then.

"What happened out there?" Alex asked. "I wasn't paying all of my attention to your battle, but I could still see that the Emperor was having a hard time in your fights. Was he playing with you?"

Zhou Linfan shook his head and looked toward the patch of sky where the Dragon Emperor and Yan Yating now fought with loud noises and bright colors.

"He was out of Immortal Qi," Zhou Linfan said. "I was so close to killing him because of it. But… he ended up eating a pill to replenish his Immortal Qi. And he got the upper hand on me instantly."

Alex stared at Zhou Linfan with wide eyes and turned to look at the Dragon Emperor in the distance. "He ate a pill to replenish his Immortal Qi?" he asked. "I can't believe that he has a pill like that. I can't imagine there being a pill capable of doing that."

"He didn't use Saint Pill," Zhou Linfan said through a grim expression as he could understand why Alex was confused. That had been part of his own confusion at first as well.

"He didn't use Saint Pill? What does that mean?" Alex asked. He wondered if he had misunderstood Zhou Linfan's words and that the Dragon Emperor had eaten something entirely different.

"He ate an Immortal pill to replenish his Immortal Qi," Zhou Linfan said in the end.

Alex remained with his stunned expression for a long time before he shook his head. He must've heard wrong. "Sorry, what did you say?" he asked.

"You heard me," Zhou Linfan said. "He ate an Immortal pill."

"That's impossible," Alex said.

"He told me he did," Zhou Linfan said.

"But that shouldn't be possible," Alex said again.

Zhou Linfan frowned. "He told me what he did himself. Are you doubting my ears?" he asked.

"No, I…" Alex churned out thoughts in his mind, trying to look for an explanation. "You were lied to. That's the only explanation."

"What makes you say that?" Zhou Linfan asked, sensing something went on here that he hadn't considered.

"Saints can't eat Immortal pills," Alex explained. "They would die if they did."

Zhou Linfan paused. Only now did his mind clear enough to realize that he had been wrong in his thinking.

Eating Immortal Pill to replenish Immortal Qi was simple, but only to Immortals. To Saints, it was a deadly matter.

"So… he lied to me?" Zhou Linfan asked.

"He must have," Alex said. "That or… no, he must have lied. The Emperor is a master alchemist himself. He wouldn't make the mistake of judging a Saint pill as an Immortal pill."

"I see," Zhou Linfan said. "He lied to me… but why?"

What reason did a killer have to lie right before killing off the person they were talking to? It made no sense to Zhou Linfan at all. It wasn't as though the Dragon Emperor expected him to survive that attack.

Alex was in a similar mindset, looking out at the Emperor, wondering both if or why he lied. He wanted to immediately dismiss the question of if he lied, but he held onto it, looking for answers.

The main question at the moment still remained the question of what pill did the Emperor eat.

"You sure it was a pill?" Alex asked.

"Absolutely," Zhou Linfan said.

"Hmm, does he have a Saint Pill recipe that can provide him with Immortal Qi instantly?" Alex wondered, looking out toward the Dragon Emperor. He knew for a fact that one could not make anything with Saint Qi to produce something that could rival Immortal Qi.

It would need something else on top of it, and that usually came from the person's own being. Like how the Darkness element corrupted a person and consumed their Qi and flesh to give them power, Immortal power with Saint materials required a similar sacrifice.

Any such sacrifice would be so clearly visible to anyone looking for it.

However, no matter how much Alex looked for it in the Dragon Emperor's actions, he could not find the telltale sign of him undergoing any such phenomenon.

'How can it be? How can he not show any signs?' Alex wondered. How could one make a pill great enough to instantly form Immortal Qi in someone using items that did not give some pushback to the person consuming it?

As he thought in that matter, the first question he had in his mind drifted right back again.

'Did he lie at all?' he wondered.

He could not imagine the Dragon Emperor telling the truth regarding the secret to his instant replenishment but thought some more in that direction to see if he had missed something.

Eating an Immortal pill was bound to kill someone, that much Alex was sure. Immortal pills had just way too much power in them for anyone to easily consume them and…

A thought bubbled up from deep within Alex's mind.

Was it possible for Immortal pills to not have much power in them? Just a tiny hint of power, something a man who was used to using his Immortal Qi could use.

'Weak Immortal pill,' Alex thought and his eyes widened at the possibility.

Making an Immortal pill that was weak by nature was something Alex knew to be impossible. However, the possibility of an Immortal pill that was weak as a result of being a failure was in fact possible.

Everyone sought far and wide to have the highest harmony in any pills they could get, but what if one could go in the other direction?

An Immortal pill with less than 10% harmony, maybe even just 5%. Such a pill would be too weak to do anything to an Immortal but to a Saint…

"That bastard!" Alex couldn't help but curse out loud. He wondered if he had just figured out something that only a few people knew. This was something he would have to test when he had the time.

Hannah arrived and asked Alex about Long Huan. Knowing that he was being looked after by Zhan Luoyang made her feel good. They then told her about how the Emperor had regained Immortal Qi.

"Do we not have such pills?" she asked Alex, only to be replied with shaking heads.

"What do we do then?" she asked with a worried expression. "If he can keep replenishing his Immortal Qi, beating him will be impossible."

"I don't think he can," Alex said. Just the Pill impurities from the pills that Dragon Emperor ate alone would take years to cleanse.

"You don't know that for certain," Hannah said and Alex nodded. It was true that they had to work with the worst-

case scenario in mind.

"I had prepared something if things got really bad," Alex said and sighed. "While they aren't the worst they can be, I fear it might be time for me to use that thing."